Does Harper hear echoes of '04 in backbench MP's remarks?

Conservative incumbent MP Brad Trost may be causing a renewed headache for Stephen Harper over his comments on abortion funding, which could give the opposition claim to warning Canadians about the Conservative party's "hidden agenda."

Photograph by: Gord Waldner
, Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Stephen Harper was, by all accounts, headed for a landmark victory.

He was building momentum on the campaign trail with a solid set of programs aimed at attracting the broad, moderate middle of the Canadian electorate and stripped of any hard-right, socially conservative policies that had stunted the growth of the now-defunct Reform party.

The polls showed the Liberals were in serious trouble, their attack ads no longer having the desired effect of convincing Canadians that the Conservatives had a "hidden agenda" that would see gay marriage and abortion rights attacked under a Harper-led government.

Then, out of the blue, a Conservative backbencher running for re-election in the West was quoted sending a seriously off-script message that made millions of Canadian voters wonder if Harper could be trusted after all.

The year was not 2011, but 2004.

And the Conservative MP whose ill-timed and ill-chosen words about same-sex marriage helped scuttle Harper's hopes for victory was Randy White, a B.C. member who — just three days before an expected Conservative election win over the Paul Martin-led Liberals in June 2004 — was quoted about using the "notwithstanding" clause in Canada's Constitution to protect the traditional definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

"To heck with the courts," White said in a documentary interview screened by Martin himself at a Liberal news conference.

Seven years later, incumbent Conservative MP Brad Trost appears to have sent Harper — possibly on the brink of winning his first majority government in the May 2 election — on an unwelcome trip down memory lane.

The Saskatchewan member was quoted addressing an anti-abortion conference on Saturday, encouraging anti-abortion activists to keep up their pressure on Ottawa and to be proud that their efforts had recently helped scuttle proposed funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation — an family-planning organization that, in part, provides overseas abortion services and has received millions of dollars in federal payouts over the years.

Trost said in a speech to the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association this month that petitions by anti-abortion advocates have been "very, very useful and they were part of what we used to defund Planned Parenthood."

"Now, you should know, they're still trying to get their snout back in the public trough," added Trost, who is running for re-election in the riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt.

Harper was quick on Thursday to downplay Trost's comments about Planned Parenthood and to reiterate his party's view that revisiting the abortion issue is "not the priority of the Canadian people, or of this government."

But the organization's multimillion-dollar funding application remains in limbo, and — just as in 2004 — opposition parties were pointing Thursday to an outlier MP's unexpected remarks to revive the "hidden agenda" charge against the Conservatives, and to try to halt Harper's momentum ahead of election day.

While the impact of Trost's comments on the current campaign remains unclear, the effect of White's out-of-right-field remarks on the 2004 election have been well documented.

In Harper's Team, a 2007 chronicle of the Conservative rise to power by the party's 2004 campaign manager, Tom Flanagan, White's "notwithstanding" outburst was described as an "enormously damaging" factor in Harper's attempt to topple Martin and become prime minister. The Liberals were re-elected with a minority government.

"The interview was perfect for the Liberals because it seemed to show that Harper really did have a hidden agenda; his carefully crafted positions on abortion, gay marriage, and perhaps other issues, were just for show, and the real Harper would come out of the box if he won the election," Flanagan, a University of Calgary political scientist, wrote.

"It was a powerful message to take into the final weekend when, traditionally, about 25 per cent of voters make up their minds."

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Conservative incumbent MP Brad Trost may be causing a renewed headache for Stephen Harper over his comments on abortion funding, which could give the opposition claim to warning Canadians about the Conservative party's "hidden agenda."

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